Classical Islamic afterlife texts portray a corporeal paradise of perfected bodies and plenty

Evidence

In the Islamic tradition, the afterlife is located in the heavenly (literally and figuratively) Gardens of Delight (Jannat Al-Na’im). Many Islamic texts portray seven different gardens devoted to different groupings of the faithful. There are gargantuan banners of praise hung above the heavens. “In the Name of God, Lord of the Worlds,” “Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds,” and “There Is Only One God, Muhammed Is His Apostle/Prophet” appear in the first row. Each row has seventy thousand banners and extends for a thousand years. Miraculous trees in the gardens are made of silver or gold, with roots in the air and branches in the ground. Magical animals and songbirds abound. Temperate and chaste men are rewarded with houris—virgins devoted solely to providing pleasure. Men and women are resurrected in bodies of perpetual youth, unsullied by pubic and armpit hair or mucus and saliva. Food is plentiful and sumptuous; people eat a hundred times more than on earth with commensurate enjoyment. Alcohol and music are enjoyed by all, but without intoxication. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 349

Categorization

• XREF: Contrasts with the abstract heavenly imagery in Christian Platonic tradition; complements the immodesty article’s cross-cultural moral-worldbuilding.
• STORYSTEM: The image of a paradise where bodies are perfected and free of mucus is a vivid detail for speculative fiction about what a ‘saved’ or resurrected body would even mean.